Thanks Ralph, This is a great post. Chris >>> Ralph Hall <[email protected]> 9/21/2010 7:13 AM >>>
Ralph R. Hall [email protected] Ralph R. Hall http://www.brasshausmusic.com Ed Glick makes a good point and brings up an important topic. I, too, went through conservatoire without buzzing and, almost by extension, without playing flexibilities. I now (seriously) feel deprived because many of the playing problems one naturally experiences in a long career, amateur or professional, can be avoided by careful embouchure guidance and remedial work at the outset. When I spent all my student grant on records, particularly the Vienna Phil., I started to ask questions as to why my horn professor never seemed to slur convincingly over larger intervals than a second. When I began playing professionally, still as a student, it was as an extra in Mahler, Bruckner, Strauss etc. and the slurring of my colleagues was just not on the same plane as Freiburg, Berger et al. Many years later I worked with John Ridgeon who was the greatest and first disciple of Arnold Jacobs in the UK. He, as a trumpet player, had serious embouchure problems at conservatoire and as a consequence devoted his professional life to the study of the physiology of brass playing - his publications are well worth serious study. He was an advocate of buzzing and always maintained that playing levels could be sustained just by the extensive buzzing of flexibilities on the mouthpiece alone, when time and circumstances prevent usual practise methods. In my own teaching I advocate buzzing for two reasons. Firstly as a pre-warm up to get the lips vibrating. How often, after a big blow the night before, have you heard players struggling to even make a sound on the instrument. It comes eventually but the initial efforts can be embarrassing! Buzz through the mouthpiece a few one octave scales and then slur the arpeggios of same. Secondly, buzzing is an essential embouchure check, either for yourself or your pupils. If the buzzing 'noise' coming out of the mouthpiece alone is 'pure', and without the accompaniment of blowing through gravel effects and a predominance of air to buzz, then the buzzing 'noise' will have some acoustical value and worth. Remember that whatever you put into the instrument will inevitably come out of the other end - good or bad! An inherently poor embouchure buzz will translate itself into a less than beautiful horn sound and that's apart from the question it poses about what else is deficient in the embouchure and the affect that deficiency might have on other aspects of playing. Ralph R. Hall _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/cwilhjelm%40pascack.k12.nj.us _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
